1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a controller for obtaining information from another device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Home networks are provided with reproducing systems that are composed of a server for saving contents (music, video, or photograph), a reproducing apparatus (hereinafter, referred to as the AV receiver) for reproducing contents in the server, and a controller for obtaining and displaying a contents list from the server and instructing the AV receiver to reproduce the contents selected from the contents list by means of a user's operation. The controllers are, for example, smartphones or portable music players or the like.
Servers store a lot of contents. The controllers request servers to transmit contents information about a predetermined number (for example, 10) of contents (hereinafter, referred to as a normal contents list obtaining request). The controllers transmit a request for obtaining contents information to the servers until contents information about all contents in the contents list is completely obtained. For example, when a server has a contents list including 200 tunes, a controller transmits a command for obtaining contents information to the server twenty times so as to obtain all contents information. When an instruction for scrolling the contents list is input by a user's operation, the controller preferentially obtains the contents information of scroll destination even during the obtainment of the contents list, and should display it on a display section of the controller.
Conventionally, when the controller transmits the request for obtaining the contents information to the server, the controller adds priority relating to the obtainment of contents information to the server. The server executes a process based on the request transmitted from the controller according to the priority, and transmits the contents information to the controller. However, when requests from the controller are accumulated in the server, it takes a time to check the priority, and thus a response to the controller is delayed. Further, when an interrupt process such as scrolling is generated in the controller, even if the controller requests contents information about the scroll destination (hereinafter, referred to as a scroll list) from the server, the server cannot immediately transmit the scroll list to the controller while executing a process for obtaining the contents information transmitted from the controller in the past. As a result, display of the scroll list in the controller is delayed.
Gazette No. WO2008/114525 describes information processing apparatus that can efficiently control an application program group structured on OS without using a round-robin function or a TSS control function.